The English Radical Alliance honours those that have fallen whilst serving our country and pays respect to those that are serving in our forces. At our AGM members obtain one minutes silence to remember those that have lost their lives, both in present and past conflicts. We also campaign for our forces only to engage in warfare if the interests of the English nation are threatened, and for our personnel to be suitably equipped in the battlefield and cared for when they return home.

In honour of those service personnel that have fallen or been maimed we dedicate poem by Rupert Brooke, entitled 'The Soldier'. Rupert Brooke was born in Rugby in 1887 and whilst on leave from military service in 1914 wrote his five War Sonnets, the most famous of which is written below. Rupert Brooke died on a French hospital ship on April 23rd 1915, aged twenty eight.

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.